


Brain Games

by YvonneSilver



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-04
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-28 03:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2717537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YvonneSilver/pseuds/YvonneSilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a ritual gone wrong, Dean finds himself caught in Sam's memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brain Games

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nivena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nivena/gifts).



> This takes place somewhere near the beginning of season 10, after Dean has become human again.  
> I'd like to thank the Supernatural Wiki for provinding transcripts of previous episodes to work off of.  
> I'd like to thank Nivena for providing a wonderful prompt, and Safiyabat for listing it on her tumblr page where I could find it.

Dean plunked the plastic bag on the kitchen table. Looking through its contents, he decided he couldn’t be bothered to sort through the groceries right now and dumped the whole thing in the fridge instead. Since he was there anyway, he fished a beer from the vegetable drawer.

“Sam?” He called, ambling through the bunker. “Sam, you home?”

Had Sam gone out without him? He’d been pretty distant lately. At first, Dean thought it was just because of the whole mess with the Mark, but what if it was something more? The kid was hiding things from him again. Bad things usually followed when that happened, Dean rationalized to himself. He stopped in front of Sam’s door, scratching absentmindedly at the red welt on his forearm. He should really check out what was going on in there. For everyone’s safety.

He knocked briefly before entering. What he saw was certainly not what he’d expected. Sam hadn’t gone out. He was kneeling on the floor in front of his bed, his eyes closed, a look of calm concentration on his face. He could have been praying, except his hands were resting on his knees. On the ground in front of him several elaborate symbols were drawn in red - paint - hopefully. In the centre on a small wooden stool stood a bronze bowl, in which a brown branch of some kind was smoking.

“What the hell Sam? Witchcraft?” Dean burst out. “What is this stuff?”

Sam’s eyes flickered open, but his gaze was unfocused. “Dean? It’s not what you think.” He blinked rapidly, seeming to come out of some trance. “Don’t touch that!” He rasped, but his reactions were slowed by whatever he’d been doing before Dean burst in. Before Sam could stop him, Dean had grabbed the smoking root and the world dissolved in a flash of brilliant white light.

 

\-------

 

The light began to fade. Dean opened his eyes and waited for them to adjust to the brightness around him. When he tried to stand up, he found he was already standing. He reached for his weapon, only to realize he wasn’t carrying. He’d been at home. He shouldn’t have to carry a gun at home. Well, he wasn’t in the bunker any more. There was a white sky above him, and to his right, an endless white plain stretched out to the horizon. On his left though, was a wall. A smooth white expanse, with simple wooden doors set in it at regular intervals. He turned his back on them.

“Hey Neo!” Dean shouted into the emptiness. “You out here?” He grinned at his own joke, trying to cover up how uncomfortable he was feeling. “Morpheus, this isn’t funny man!”

His words floated away into the blank expanse. A shiver ran up his spine. There was something off about this place. Well, to be fair, everything was off about this place. He turned back to the line of doors. If he didn’t want to spend eternity in nowhere-land, he’d have to start somewhere. And these doors would have to lead to something, right? He rolled back his shoulders, and resolutely stepped through one.

 

\-------

 

_Well, that was much easier than he’d expected it to be._

He was back in the bunker again. Except something was wrong. It was like walking into a different dimension. Everything seemed to be slightly out of place. Somebody walked into his frame of view. Dean’s heart leapt. Kevin?

_“Hey, do you notice anything a little bit off about Dean lately? Between you and me, I’m a little worried about him” The young prophet said._

I’m fine, Dean thought, but those weren’t the words coming out of his mouth.

_“Don’t worry about Dean. Dean will be fine.” He said sonorously, but the voice was not his own, and when he stepped forward, it wasn’t him controlling his movements._

_No. No no no, he thought, but he raised his hand anyway, pressed his palm against Kevin’s forehead. Kevin screamed._

Somehow, Dean managed to close his eyes.

 

\-------

 

When he opened his eyes, he was back on the endless white plain again. He fell forward, breathing heavily. What kind of shit had Sam gotten himself into while Dean was... gone? He heaved, but there was nothing to throw up, so instead he swallowed heavily a few times, trying to get the salt taste out of his mouth. He felt like he’d tried to drink the fucking ocean. Coughing, he made it back on to his feet.

Had Sam sat this up for him? Was this supposed to be some kind of lesson? Dean kicked angrily at the door. Like he needed a fucking reminder that Kevin’s death was on his hands. “Do you think this is funny!” He shouted up at the impassive sky.

This place was working on his nerves. He wandered past a couple of  doors, since there was nothing much else to do here, but they seemed to stretch on endlessly. Soon though, his impatience got the better of him. Fine. If Sam couldn’t just talk to him like a normal human being, he’d play along. He opened another door.

 

\-------

 

_He woke up with a start. Oh thank god. It was all just a nightmare. He didn’t move, just stared up at the ceiling and waited for his heart rate to return to normal, when someone laid a hand on his chest. He reached up and took the small hand in his own. “I’m sorry.” He said softly turning his head towards the woman at his side. “Did I wake you?”_

_“It’s okay,” she whispered. “You were having a nightmare.” The woman had long dark hair and large brown eyes that looked at him questioningly._

_He nodded noncommittally._

_“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me what it’s about,” she said softly._

_He sighed and turned away from her. “I’m going to get a glass of water.”_

_He knew she watched him till he left the room. He wished he could tell her more. She deserved more, she deserved so much better than this shell of a person he was now. But it was all he could do to hold himself together._

_He reached for the cupboard and grabbed a glass. His hands were shaking. He wished he could call Dean._

Wait. Dean thought. Am I still dreaming?

_Dean was dead, he thought, and he needed to move on with his life. It was the only way. He leant against the countertop and stared into the night outside. He was just about to turn around when something grabbed him from behind. His reflexes were lightning fast. He jabbed backwards with his elbow and with a yelp the thing behind him let go. He spun round, water sloshing from the glass in one hand, his other hand balled to a fist._

_He lowered his hands immediately when he saw what he’d done. “Amelia.” He breathed. She was sitting up against the kitchen cabinets, rubbing her head. He knelt down beside her. “Oh gods, Amelia, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”_

_“No, no.” She shook her head and moaned. “I shouldn’t have snuck up on you like that.”_

_No, it was his fault, he was wrong. He always hurt the people close to him. He hovered beside her, afraid to touch, afraid to break the one normal thing in his life again._

_“Hey. Hey! It’s okay.” She cupped his face in her hand and gave him a smile. “C’mon, let’s go back to bed.”_

_He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve any of it. But he needed her. She didn’t stop the nightmares and she didn’t alleviate the guilt and she couldn’t change any of his messed up past, but she was there and she anchored him in the real world. Maybe he could get through this._

This isn’t the real world, Dean thought. He stepped through the bedroom door and stumbled. When he looked up, he was in the white plain again.

 

\------

 

Dean flexed his hand. He could still feel Amelia’s warm hand leading him back to the safety of the bedroom. That wasn’t the only feeling that lingered. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so lost, so out of place, so wrong. No wait. He could. Five years ago, when Sam had told him to live a normal life before jumping into the pit.

God. He’d been so pissed at Sam for not looking for him. For trying to make things work with Amelia. When he’d only been doing the same as he had with Lisa. Dean clenched his teeth - even thinking her name brought back feelings he didn’t want to remember. Shit. What if Sam had had a chance with Amelia? What if Dean had been the one to ruin it by charging back into his life?

No. Dean shook his head. He wasn’t going to let Sam get into his head like that. Things were better like this. Dean and his brother, side by side, fighting the good fight - that’s how it was supposed to be. These mind games wouldn’t work on him. He clenched his fists and stomped away from the door, further down the one-sided corridor. Sam could show him all the lovey-dovey bullshit he wanted, Dean didn’t care. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d intruded on something private back there.

 

He wandered by door after door, each one exactly the same as the next. He might’ve started wondering if he was going in circles, when he reached a break in the pattern. Literally. Instead of a door was a hole, a huge gaping hole. It looked like a truck had come thundering through, were it not for the fact that there was no debris anywhere. There were iron bars spanning the height of the gap, as if it were a prison of some kind. Whether there was something behind them or not, Dean couldn’t tell, because the area was filled with a thick gray smoke.

A chill ran up Dean’s spine. He was certain there was something there, waiting to pounce from the depths of that smoke. Something vaguely familiar. Tendrils of smoke crawled out between the bars, dissipating into the whiteness. The longer Dean stared, the more he began to think of the mist as some kind of living thing, with its own mind, its own dark intentions. There are few things that can scare Dean Winchester, and fewer still that Dean would admit to. He would admit to fearing whatever lay behind that crack.

Though the smoke dissipated before reaching him, he started to feel it choke him. His breathing became ragged, he felt his hands shaking. He needed to get out. He turned and ran, but he could still feel the chill creeping up on him. Desperately, he opened the nearest door.

 

\-------

 

_He put his hand against the brick wall to steady himself as he caught his breath. ‘It’s not real’, he told himself, clenching his eyes tight shut. ‘No point running’. He clenched his left fist tightly until his heart rate slowed. When he opened his eyes, things were normal again. Just a quiet street in a small city. Nothing to be afraid of._

_A bell jingled pleasantly as he entered the grocery store. ‘Just buy some supplies, get back home, no big deal,’ he thought to himself. ‘I can handle this.’_

_He nodded politely at the clerk before making his way up and down the various aisles. He halted in the second aisle. A woman and her child were standing in front of the potted goods section. When they turned their heads toward him, he saw they had no eyes._

_“Not real.” He muttered as he pushed past them._

_In the next aisle was a slippery-when-wet sign. Blood had pooled around it, leaking from the bottom shelf. He stopped and pressed his thumb against the palm of his left hand. As the sting of the wound there radiate up his wrist, the blood drained back into the shelf. Everything was fine. He knew what was wrong. He could handle this._

The pain brought him back to his senses. Dean remembered this, the cut on Sam’s hand, how often he’d pressed it to handle the hallucinations. Was this what Sam had been dealing with when the wall collapsed?

_When he got to the check-out, he froze for a moment. Beside the bald, middle-aged clerk stood a familiar figure. Lucifer. He swallowed heavily and forced himself to greet the teller normally._

_“This is real cute Sammy.” Lucifer purred. “Taking care of your poor broken brother. You do know he just wanted you out of the house so he and Bobby could talk about you behind your back.”_

_He ignored him. In the stand beside the counter, the paper’s headline caught his eye. “Ice pick killer strikes again”. He’d read that somewhere before._

_“Paper too?” The clerk asked._

_He glanced up. “Yeah. Please.” He answered distractedly, pressing against the cut on his hand again. He paid and gathered his things. When he looked up, Lucifer was gone. Good. He needed to stay focussed. He dug the keys of the impala into his hand and left._

\------

 

Wow. Dean had known that Sam’d been messed up after what Cas did to him, but damn. He’d been messed up. Dean rubbed absentmindedly at the mouse of his left hand.

Right. Doors weren’t leading anywhere. Time to check out the massive creepy hole. He made his way back to where the break in the wall was. The gray smoke was still seeping through the prison bars, disappearing into the immaculate white floor. Dean took a deep breath and reached out.

A hand closed around his wrist. “You don’t want to go in there.”

Dean yanked free and spun around. “Sam!” He exclaimed. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was relieved to see his brother. “Why did you bring me here?” He asked indignantly.

“I didn’t bring you here Dean.” Sam answered, a tired note in his voice. “You interrupted me. Remember? We should leave.”

Sam made to grab his arm again, but Dean sidestepped him. He wouldn’t let his little brother get the upper hand on him again. “What is this place?”

“It’s a memory vault.”

“A what?”

“We’re in my memories Dean.” Sam explained patiently “It helps me compartmentalize.”

“What the hell, Sam? We’re in your head? When did you set this up?”

“Consciously? After you had the wall put up for my memories of the cage. Don’t get me wrong Dean, I was grateful for you pulling me back. And I had no intention of scratching. But there was something foreign in my head. Again. I had to take a look. So I did some research.”

Dean rubbed his forehead. “Oh god Sam. What did you do?”

“Remember the African dream root we used a couple of years back? There are certain preparations where it lets you enter your memories instead. It took some practice, but finally I found this place.” He stretched and brushed the edges of the hole. “This used to be one blank, unbroken space of wall. When it broke down, the memories...” Sam’s voice falters for a moment. He swallows and presses on. “Anyway, I managed to put the bars down, keep most of it inside. But parts would... bleed out.” His voice wavers again. “Well. You know what happened. I’m not sure what Cas did when he healed me. But the next time I came here this grey mist was there. I can tell the memories are still there, but the mist obscures enough to keep it bearable.”

Dean realized he was gaping at his brother. He closed his mouth and shook his head in disbelief. He knew Sammy was messed up, he just hadn’t ever realized how much.

“What about the doors?” He asked to distract himself from the implications.

Sam leapt at the chance to change the subject. “Oh, those were always there. The mind has a great capacity for filing away things it doesn’t need any more. But after the trials, when I started remembering all the tiny little details of everything again, it got really messy in here. It got harder for me to prioritize, everything was at the forefront of my mind all of the time. Memories kept cropping up when I had no need for them. The dream root just, helped me organize it.”

Dean felt a sudden irrational burst of anger welling up. “And you didn’t think to share this?” He asked angrily. “I remember Hell, Sam! And you’re locking away memories of some girl?” Sam winced, but Dean thundered on. “You don’t think there are memories I want to lock away?”

“It doesn’t work that way.” Sam said, but Dean already turned away from him. “Dean, I’m sorry, I didn’t -” Sam started, but Dean steamrolled over him.

“What have you got in here that’s worse than hell, Sam?” Dean fumed, spinning around. “What else is down here?” He pushed brusquely past Sam, stepped towards the nearest door and yanked it open.

“Dean no!”

 

\------

 

_When he came to, he was lying on a bed in Bobby’s panic room. Even before he opened his eyes, he recognized the rhythmic puffing of the ceiling fan. He could feel cuffs around his chains and ankles. It was kind of ironic - the last time Dean had chained him up here, he’d been trying to get something out of him. This time he wanted to stuff something back in._

_His let his mind go blank as he stared at the ceiling. There was no getting out of this. He’d had one plan, and it had failed. He had no regrets for what he’d tried to do. It had been self-preservation. He hadn’t wanted to do it, but it had been a last resort._

_He turned his head when the door open. A familiar figure walked in, a hint of a smile on his gaunt face._

_He couldn’t help himself. Instinct kicked in, and he rattled futilely at his cuffs. “Get away from me! Don’t. Don’t!”_

_Death approached him calmly and sat beside him on the bed. “Now, Sam, I’m going to put a barrier inside your mind.” He spoke in clipped tones._

_“No! Don’t touch me.”_

_“It might feel a little… itchy,” Death continued, unperturbed. “Do me a favor - don’t scratch the wall. Trust me, you’re not going to like what happens.”_

_He searched Death’s eyes for a hint of compassion, humanity. “Please. Don’t do this.”_

_Death serenely placed a black suitcase on the bed beside him, and produced a bright ball of glowing light from it._

_“No, no!” He tried frantically to get away. “You don’t know! You don’t know what’ll happen to me! Dean, please! No.”_

 

\--------

 

Dean stumbled out of the memory. His movements felt foreign, as though he was remotely controlling a robot instead of his own body. How many times had Sam woken up and felt the same thing? How did anything even feel real to him?

Dean straightened up and saw that his hands were shaking. He tried to cover up his moment of weakness by snarling at Sam. “What the fuck Sam? I thought you didn’t remember being soulless?” He regretted it the moment the words left his mouth. The kid already had enough to deal with. Why was he adding to it?

Sam was sitting on the floor a couple of feet away, his legs crossed and his eyes closed. There was an echo of a door slamming in the distance and Sam opened his eyes. He looked up at his older brother with a cold, detached look in his eyes. “You know what Dean. I’m done. I’m done defending myself against you. Go ahead. Explore. I don’t care. I’ll be here when you want to get out.”

Dean’s anger flared at Sam’s tone of voice. The hint of protectiveness he was feeling evaporated. He gritted his teeth and squared his shoulders. “Fine. I will.”

 

He should have known that was a bad idea. Dean always said there wasn’t anything he didn’t know about Sam. That didn’t mean he knew what it was like to be him.

Dean had seen first-hand how Lucifer had taken control of Sam. But Sam had never said how the fallen angel’s grace had turned to ice in his veins. Dean hadn’t realized how the demon blood had boiled as it came into contact with angel’s grace, turning into a red-hot mist that drove Sam’s own consciousness out of his limbs and kept him cornered in his own mind. Dean didn’t know that Lucifer’s first action when he was freed had been was to use Sam’s own hands to kill the demon’s Sam had seen in his childhood, trying to convince Sam to surrender his free will too. And Dean couldn’t believe he hadn’t.

He experienced Sam’s battle with Hunger. When Hunger came to town, Sam had told Dean to lock him up or he wouldn’t be able to control himself, and Dean had sighed, rolled his eyes, and chained his brother to a motel sink. But Sam had never explained what it meant to feel Hunger. He’d never said what it’s like to feel that emptiness in your gut. How the world shrinks down to only the sound of hearts beating. Dean had been disappointed in Sam had chosen to take demon blood again. When he saw the two demons enter the bathroom, Dean knew there had been no choice.

Dean learned about Sam’s demon-blood fueled powers. He felt the strength, the control that using them gave him. And he felt how much Sam hated himself every single time he used them. No matter how many lives he saved, Sam had known he was entering a darkness he couldn’t come back from. Yet he’d gone on anyway, because he had to find a way to battle the darkness and use it for good.

 

When he came back out from that memory, Dean looked down at his arm. The Mark wasn’t there in this dream-world. Sam had tried time and again to help him, to warn him, to pull him away from that dark edge. Dean clenched his fist and watched the veins stand out in his arm. He knew he should stop, should go over to his brother and talk to him. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t admit defeat now. Instead he soldiered on, opening doors at random, striding up and down the rows and rows of memories. He watched Jess burn on the ceiling. He watched as Meg used Sam’s hands to kill a fellow hunter. He watched himself die at the invisible claws of hellhounds.

 

Finally he fell out of another memory to find Sam waiting for him behind the door. He regarded Dean patiently, his arms crossed, his head cocked slightly to one side.

It took Dean a moment to catch his breath after what he’d just seen. Sam had told him, of course, about the endless string of Tuesdays. Living them was a whole different beast. There was a sickly-sweet taste in his mouth and he was pretty sure he was going to throw up. He put a hand on his brothers arm for support as he coughed his lungs out. “But none of that really happened!” He spit, finally. “None of that is real!”

“I still remember it.” Sam said matter-of-factly. Dean clutched his stomach, looking up at him. Sam looked at him with a hint of pity in his eyes. “You died hundreds, thousands of times, in endless horrible ways, and there was no way for me to stop any of it. There is not a single mundane situation where I can’t imagine something going horribly inexplicably wrong. That’s fine. It keeps me sharp. But there were times when I would wake up and wonder how I was going to lose you that day. I couldn’t keep dealing with that over and over. So yeah, I found a way to bury that as best I could.”

There was no judgement in his voice. Sam was trying so hard to make him understand. Dean looked away. He’d seen enough.

“So how far does this go on?” He asked.

“This?” Sam looked along the rows of doors. “About thirty years. Give or take.”

“Thirty. That’s your whole life.” Dean said in a hollow voice.

“Yes.”

Dean straightened up and looked at his brother with a new-found admiration. Not that he'd ever admit to it. “So, what were you putting away this time?”

“You don’t want to know Dean.”

“C’mon Sammy. You can tell me.”

There was a fire in Sam’s eyes when he looked at his brother. “It’s you, Dean.” He spit. “Demon you.” He sighed, and when he continued he just sounded tired. “The things you did, the things you said to me.” He trails off, unwilling to expand.

“Sam.” Dean hesitated. He looked at all the doors behind him and wondered how many of them were memories of him. “You know I...”

“I know.” Sam cut him off.  “I know, it wasn’t you. I’m trying to work past it, really I am. It’s just.” He fumbled for the right words. “I can’t look at you without seeing those black eyes. I can still hear everything you said. I just, I could use an extra barrier, you know.”

“I get it Sam. I get it. And Sam.” _I’m sorry._ It’s two words. How hard could it be. Dean took a deep breath. “You’re right. It wasn’t me.”

Sam nodded, and Dean ignored the fact that he couldn’t really meet his eye.

“So” Dean cleared his throat. “I think I should leave now.” He formulated it as close to asking permission as he can.

“Yeah. I’ll walk you out.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> The episodes/seasons referenced are, in order of appearance;  
> S09E09 - Holy Terror  
> Pre-S08  
> S07E03 - The Girl Next Door  
> S06E11 - Appointment in Samarra  
> S05E22 - Swan Song  
> S05E14 - My Bloody Valentine  
> S04  
> S01E01 - Pilot  
> S02E14 - Born Under A Bad Sign  
> S03E16 - No Rest for the Wicked  
> S03E11 - Mystery Spot
> 
> Comments, suggestions, or additions are very much welcomed!


End file.
